To think 8pm is too late to eat our turkey on Christmas Day

[Pinkevie]

My in-laws are hosting xmas day this year and two days ago my husband announced that they are not expecting us to turn up until 6pm and will be serving the turkey at 8pm. (We live nearby so will be walking over). For me this feels ludicrously late in the day to enjoy the festive roast, especially as our 11 and 14 year old will be up at the crack of dawn and so we'll have been up for hours at this point. I think I'm going to be nodding off in the gravy. My mum is also joining us and suffers with terrible heartburn, she thinks she's going to have to forego a decent portion or face being up in agony all night. I could accept eating the meal at 6pm but 8pm feels so late. My husband says as his parents are providing the meal this year we have to go with a timetable that suits them and it will stress out his 80 year old mum if he mentions I want it to a bit earlier. A late meal has always been her preference. I get on well with her and don't want to upset her but think she would see reason if he broached the issue tactfully but he is refusing to do so and has forbidden me from asking her. I feel to bring it forward by a couple of hours would be a reasonable compromise. They'd still have plenty of time to prepare the meal at a leisurely pace but we wouldn't be hanging around all day before we can properly enjoy the festivities. I also think it's nice to enjoy a family game of charades or similar after christmas dinner but don't think we'll have time if we're starting so late. Curious to see what others think.

I am sort of guessing that OP's in laws are not planning a four hour meal, although I might be wrong. I genuinely hadn't realised until this thread that so many people did.
We would be lovely food, an hour round the table, then dipping back and forth for more nibbles and chit chat around the house. I'd be fine with 8 pm - just this once, unless I had an early start on Boxing day. My concern about 8 pm is would this actually be 8 pm or more like 10 pm by the time it gets going?

Isn't that just like a really, really early big cooked breakfast?

Why would we be at the table at midnight? How do meals take four or five hours?
And how is excess the point?
Dinner takes about an hour, and after we've cleared away, we have dessert.
When my DCs were small, they were in bed by 9:45, which was just slightly later than their usual bedtime anyway.

We ate at about 2.15 today. I am still feeling stuffed over 5 hours later.

Just waiting for our host to call us to the table.

Perfectly normal time for grown ups to eat dinner and young people to enjoy staying up for a late adult dinner. Eat, relax, wind down, bed by midnight.

We did it an hour or so earlier when the kids were younger.

It really isn't normal. Wtf wants to go to bed at midnight? Nobody I know

I think it would work with a nap, but I'm up at 6am so wouldn't work for me otherwise. Maybe when I was 20 but I need my sleep now.

I think that's a very odd thing to say! I don't think I've ever been to bed before midnight unless I was ill and I don't know anyone else who would go to bed much earlier than that.

Perhaps it's generational, I don't many people under 50 who would be going to bed before midnight at Christmas. We're usually up till around 11.30/midnight most nights anyway.

Most supermarkets are open until 10pm so I'd say 11pm is a normal bedtime, maybe 10.30 to midnight for adults. School kids year 8 to 11 might do 10pm. Any earlier is really early, things like scouts are from age 10 and finish at 9pm.

What time are you up? I need to be up at 6am and need 8 hours of sleep.

They are also open at 6am or 8am at the latest Monday to Saturday. That would make 5am a normal wake up time according to that logic.

I take it you're not up at the crack of twat for work then? Most people I know have jobs and don't go to bed stupid o'clock.

Yeah I'm up a smite earlier. Going to bed at midnight is a silly idea. Sleep is king.

Yes, I work, and I'm usually up at around 7.30 on the days I'm working, and maybe 8.30 at weekends. When my daughter was younger and I did the school run, I was usually up by 6.30. I aim to be in bed by about 1 most nights, and to be asleep by 2. I can't comment on whether bedtimes are generational but I'm 66 and most of my friends are similar ages, and I don't think my bedtime has changed much since I was a child.

Weirdly enough people need various amounts of sleep. I'd hang myself if I aimed to be asleep by 2 and then up at 5.30 which is when I have to get up for work. or even 7.30 if I didnt.

So really to sum up going on the flavour of the thread, it's inconsiderate to arrange a family meal late at night when not everyone goes to bed late usually. You do you when it's your own household but thinking of others goes a long way for a compromise.

we ate at 5pm yesterday and I said to DH I couldn’t cope with much later as you need time to digest it. I wouldn’t want to go to bed super full.

We even managed a few crackers at 10pm

My MIL served Xmas dinner at 8pm and then at 9.30pm brought in loads of sandwiches and sausage rolls which obviously nobody wanted!

Everyone I know works, I don't think I know anyone who gets up that early. We usually get up around 8am.

That's when I start work, and I need to allow half an hour to get there because of roadworks (and cows from May to November).

Meals take four or five hours because there are multiple courses, plus pauses to chat and enjoy each other’s company. That’s just what happens here at Christmas.
Feasting is about excess. It just is. I don’t buy cake or loads of chocolate though, the Christmas meal is the single example of excess.

YANBU. Far too late.

I leave the house at 7.45 to catch the 8 o’clock train for the job I’m currently doing. Mostly though my work starts at about 8.30 and I need to be there before that (teacher - it’s ages - decades - since I e worked anywhere with a start time later than 8.45). I also have to get up, showered, dressed, ready and actually travel there. You’re really lucky if your work starts later than 9 and even then it would need to take you 15 mins or less to get to work - which I also think is unusual - to make waking up at 8 work.

I work and get up at 6am as does everyone in my house

I set all the food out on the table and we pass dishes around, chatting as we go. Dinner doesn't take hours. In my book, feasting is about quality as opposed to quantity, so no excess. Desserts are pecan pie and pumpkin pie, served with coffee on our laps as we sit in the sitting room. When the DCs were small we had dessert at the table but they're all better at using forks now

For some reason the fgrin showed up as a bar of Dairy Milk on my phone...